When Bad Things Happen to Good Yarn

Consider this lovely ball of yarn:

Now, look what’s been done with it:
(If that small image makes you all squinty, you can click here for a bigger version.)

The project is from the Spring 2007 issue of Knitter’s; the yarn is Ty Dy by Knit One Crochet Too. The knit tank top manages to capture all that’s bad about quilted clothing and translates it, with no improvement at all, to the world of knitting.

But that yarn! I just want to pat it and hold it and love it. It pushes the tertiary-colors-violet-apple-pleasure button that apparently is hard-wired into my consciousness (recall, for example, my two favorite colorways of Malabrigo: Col China and Melilla). I doubt I’ll be buying Ty Dy anytime soon as it’s about $13 for a 197 yard ball, which seems a bit pricey for what might turn out to be nothing more than glorified dish-cloth cotton. But if I were to stumble across a winning lottery ticket in the next few days, I’d throw caution to the wind and order a bag (or two) posthaste.